


Then He Could Rest

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: Whumptober 2019 [30]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Abandonment, Anders (Dragon Age) Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Secret Crush, Slice of Life, Young Anders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-17 10:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21266111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Three times in Anders life that drove him forwards in hopes of a better life, for all mages.-Anders trembled, fingers hooked into the soft fabric like a dying man, panting against the mattress until it felt as if he could choke from the warmth.Karl wasn't here, he wasn't. Anders didn't know if it was the demons again, or the templars, or even his own mind, finally snapped after so long in the dark and quiet, but he could hear his voice.
Relationships: Anders & Female Surana (Dragon Age), Anders & Justice, Anders/Karl Thekla, Anders/Male Hawke, Zevran Arainai/Female Surana
Series: Whumptober 2019 [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502396
Kudos: 19





	Then He Could Rest

**Author's Note:**

> [ My Tumblr!](https://inkformyblood.tumblr.com) Requests are always welcome!

Anders pulled the blanket over his head, squeezing his eyes shut against the filtered light, too bright, too much.

"Anders?"

He trembled, fingers hooked into the soft fabric like a dying man, panting against the mattress until it felt as if he could choke from the warmth.

Karl wasn't here, he wasn't. Anders didn't know if it was the demons again, or the templars, or even his own mind, finally snapped after so long in the dark and quiet, but he could hear his voice.

"Anders, breathe. We'll get through this."

So confident, so calm, everything Anders wasn't. Where Anders was blunt, mouth running away from him with his blood filled with fire and rage; Karl was collected, soft words to temper the fire of his anger, to redirect the torrent to other pursuits.

Anders' skin burned with the memory of Karl's hands on him, nails scratching over his ribs, fingers worming into the sensitive skin behind his knees, on his neck, until Anders was screaming with laughter, all worries fading away. He loved Karl, loved him fiercely with all of his heart.

Karl had made the Tower, had made captivity bearable. Anders could bear the kicks and hits from the Templar's, could bear the constant eyes watching him, if only to be able to sneak across the dorms and slip into Karl's bed, to kiss and bite him until the rolling anger beneath his skin was abated.

"I'm here. Don't worry."

But Karl wasn't here. He was across the ocean in Kirkwall. And Anders wasn't even able to say goodbye.

They'd separated them before. Anders hadn't thought anything of it, hadn't considered how it would be different from any other day of lessons. A small flicker of doubt emerged when Karl was stopped at the door, pale face obscured by armoured arms, the stubble Anders loved to feel the burn of rasping as he rubbed his fingers against it nervously.

But that wasn't unusual. 'Restraint' was not a word the Templars knew, old comfortable rage curling in his chest. Anders knocked over a stool to shove elfroot in his pocket, meeting the exhausted gaze of the teacher with a challenging stare. Karl would need it more.

Anders watched as Karl walked away down the corridor, so slim between the bulk of the templars. As if feeling Anders' eyes on him, Karl looked back over his shoulder, blowing Anders a small kiss, barely more than a slight pursing of his lips. It was all they would allow themselves while the Templars were watching. Anders returned the gesture and settled back to watching the clouds roll outside the barred window, freezing morning air rolling in, idly recalling the time he jumped from one during an earlier escape attempt.

It was the scream that first drew the classes attention. Despite the frequency that screams echoed around the Circle Tower, it still caught their ears. This was... Different. Whispers broke out despite the stern words of their teacher, faces turning slowly but surely towards the open window.

"Anders!"

Anders couldn't remember standing, he couldn't remember moving to the window and leaning as far out as he could, metal cold against his skin. His entire existence narrowed down to Karl's face, pale and so far below him as the Templar's forced him into a boat.

A sob ripped through Anders as he lay there, on his bed in the dormitory, uncaring if anyone else was around him. What they thought of the crazy mage who kept trying to escape, who shared a prison cell with a cat that turned out to be a rage demon, didn't matter. Karl's removal hadn't killed him, solitary didn't kill him. He'd recover from a year in silence and darkness, he'd stop hearing his lover's voice whispered into his ears, and then he would be gone.

* * *

Anders groaned, pulling the pillow back over his face, wondering if this would be the time that he suffocated himself and died. Would they notice before Sir Pounce-a-lot started eating his face?

As if he had been summoned by the mages' thoughts, the cat leapt onto his bed, mattress dipping slightly beneath his weight and meowed loudly. Anders laughed despite himself. Two constants in his life: dreams of darkspawn were shit, and his cat was always demanding food.

"You're a good boy Sir Pounce-a-lot," Anders murmured, shoving the pillow haphazardly beneath his head and patting his stomach, the flesh firm rather than the hollow it had been, encouraging the cat to curl up on him. The claws were an uncomfortable prickle on his skin, but nothing Anders wasn't used to.

His hands were littered with small scars from knives handled when they were barely more than a block of ice, burns from potions ladled into bottles too quickly when time was more important than his own comfort. What was some more tiny marks that would heal easily, barely worth the effort pulling magic from the Fade would require?

Sir Pounce-a-lot meowed once more, a faint smell of fish following the noise, before he curled up on Anders' stomach and went back to sleep, warm and content.

Anders wished he could do the same.

He missed Surana. Missed her fierce protectiveness, missed her laugh, missed the way she seemed to stare into his very soul and didn't find him wanting. It wasn't even an attraction, devoted as she was to her mysterious Antivan elven boyfriend. She... Understood him, understood his rage at the suffering of mages in a way few others did, forged in the fires of Kinhold Tower as they both were.

Anders had thought that, maybe, this would be it. He could stop running and breathe for once in his life. Stop looking over his shoulder like a frightened animal, stop adding to his tally of escape attempts and yet...

Surana was gone. She disappeared in the night with nothing more than a note. _Back soon, I'm sorry. Stay safe_. Six words to rip Anders' world upside down.

He wasn't stupid. He heard the whispers, saw the looks.

Abomination they called him. Monster, they said. Demon, they called Justice.

Anders was going to have to run again, but this time he wouldn't be running alone. He would finally do _something_ to help his fellow mages, even if he would die trying.

* * *

Whether Hawke minded being awoken almost every morning by his pillow being ripped from beneath his head so Anders could bury beneath it, he never said.

He’d only sigh, sounding remarkably like his mabari as it lay snoozing at the foot of their (wasn’t that a revelation?) bed, and pull Anders’ closer. His nose was cold against the back of Anders neck and he welcomed the chill, welcomed the grounding reminder that he was loved and wanted here.

It was almost unsettling, this feeling of contentment that bubbled up in his chest. Anders, as strange as it sounded, felt at peace here.

And that was wrong.

How could he feel happy when there were mages in exactly the same position he had been? Scared and alone, starved and weak? Beaten down until there was no hope of standing back up?

“Copper for them?”

Hawke’s voice was rough with sleep, his hands warm and possessive on his stomach as he pulled Anders closer. Anders could tell he had pressed a kiss to the pillow, denied access to Anders face so he made do.

“Just thinking,” Anders replied. Sadness crested like a wave in his chest, and he let it crash over him, unsure if the feeling came from himself, or from Justice.

It was strange, they were so distinct at times and at others, they were the same person.

If he was just Anders, would be able to let himself stay? Would he be able to stay here, to sleep in Hawke’s arms and be content, to slowly piece the fractured parts of himself back together?

“If you were a patient, you would say to rest,” Hawke replied, fingers tapping out a beat, an Orlesian waltz of Anders wasn’t mistaken, on his stomach.

“If I was a patient, I’d be in my clinic,” Anders countered, half-heartedly with no real heat behind his words.

The black powder he had hidden away weighed on him like anchor, rooting him to the spot no matter how much slipping his bonds appealed in daydreams. Hawke laughed softly, the noise reverberating through Anders’ chest, the man shifting slightly into a more comfortable position as he prepared to return to sleep.

Anders peeked out from beneath the cushion. He couldn’t see it from the window, but he knew it was there. The Gallows, towering and monstrous, a true abomination.

He would do something; he would set them free. And then… maybe then he could rest and heal like he so desperately needed.

But this time, he would be truly alone.


End file.
